ACE-100

The ACE-100 was the first computer produced by Franklin.  It was a very close copy of the Apple II, but the motherboard was larger and it had an off-the-shelf case.  They were in a hurry to get systems to market and the wait for a custom formed case was many months, so Franklin found a company willing to machine their existing generic cases and paint them for Franklin in a short-term effort.

Like the Apple II, the motherboard had 48K of RAM using 24 4116 RAM chips, and include a RAM board plugged into slot 0 to provide the other 16K.

I started when the ACE-100s were still being shipped, and had one of my desk for quite a while. My old machine is still in the basement, or at least parts of it.  When my Ferguson Big Board needed a case, I pulled the ACE-100 motherboard out and mounted the Big Board inside it.  Once that machine was retired, I foolishly sold it at the Trenton Computer Festival to Dave Thompson, the publisher of Micro Cornucopia magazine.  My original ACE-100 motherboard sits in the basement.

The first few machines (quantity unknown) were given to major investors and the founders, and featured a “gold” plate on the front with the name of the person.  I have the one originally given to Jim Simons, the original big-time venture fund provider.  Look him up, he’s worth a few (!) billion (Billion with a B).  It’s the lowest serial number of any Franklin system, something like 10001.  However, it was not the first system made, as a few were built for demos, and when it came to these special machines they were probably all built around the same time and one just happened to be #1, another was #2, etc.